Page 10 - School Planning & Management, March 2019

INTELLIGENT SCHOOLS
K-12 school buildings that automatically manage and control utility costs 24-hours a day.
By Michael Fickes
CAN YOU DEFINE AN INTELLIGENT BUILDING? The term has gained wider and wider recognition since the 1980s. It has meant smart heating, smart cooling, and
both smart heating and cooling—first one, then the other, then both. Today, finally, despite nearly 40 years of varied meanings, the term “intelligent building” is beginning to achieve a fixed definition.
“At HID Global, we define intelligent buildings as buildings in which one can leverage the access control infrastructure to create more seamless and intuitive user experiences,” says Ashish Malpani, director of Product Marketing with HID’s Department of Extended Access Technologies.
But that is what comes next, says Malpani. “Today intelligent buildings are mostly focused on energy and energy savings,” he continues. “These goals are achieved by optimizing building systems so that they use more and less energy depending on the needs of current building occupants.”
Sensors placed throughout a building tell the lighting and HVAC systems where people are in the building, and the systems respond with lighting and heating or cooling as needed to adjust the lighting and temperature to optimal levels.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has its own defi- nition of intelligent buildings. According to the EPA media office, “Commercial buildings operate as dynamic systems, writes an EPA representative in response to written questions submitted to the agency. “We know that the greatest gains in energy efficiency come when teams take a whole-building approach, rather than tackling individual upgrades and projects in isolation.
“For example, replacing old lighting with more efficient—and less heat-producing—LEDs will not only save on lighting costs, but will also lower a building’s summer cooling needs, which could lead to a smaller, less energy-intensive cooling system.
10 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MARCH 2019
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